Virtual Reality Getting its Own Network?

loganrapp writes "We've all watched the Matrix, and regardless of how we felt about them, the concept of plugging into a virtual reality appeals greatly to us. It appears that a nonprofit group called the International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies plans to build a network purely for virtual reality. Its name? Neuronet, and the first generation is planned for 2007, with "consumer applications" planned for 2009. There is some fear, however, that the whole thing is a scam."

huh?

Wouldn't using an existing network like say the internet be much cheaper?

Sounds bogus to me.

The statement "...new standards must be created, and network hardware must support those standards..." sounds like they either don't know what they are talking about or it is compeletely bogus. Exactly what modifications to ethernet hardware would be needed for this service? In fact, what changes to IP would be needed? There are already realtime flags/protocols and multicasting built into it. They would just need to buy the right routing equipment, wouldn't they?

I can see why they can't use normal ISPs, since most of them don't support multicast at the home user's end and their latency and bandwidth allowed is usually bad for games/vr. But why would they need to engineer whole new protocols? I just don't see it.

Re:Sounds bogus to me.

Actually, they're right. Not saying they're any more realistic about what they're doing, but the Internet2 research that has been going on has run into plenty of problems with the basic IP protocols, from packet overhead to issues with TCP backoff algorithms. These things just weren't designed with gigabit+ speeds in mind, even though they work there, their efficiency is poor and in some cases really quite pathological.

Of particular concern above and beyond the basic failings when confronted with very high speeds, the balance between bandwidth ad latency starts to warp significantly as the bandwidth of the link increases. The speed of light, and thus the latency from A to B will never change, although response times improve due to better switching, but the amount that can be sent in any given moment constantly increases as we improve our ability to transmit more data per second. As a consequence, the idea of, for example, the standard TCP handshake SYN *wait* ACK will never improve despite greater speeds, it'll always be constrained by the need to wait for light to get to the end and back. At the moment, this is efficient, in the near future you would be better off sending a whole HTTP request off in a single packet and if the other end doesn't want to talk it'll send back a RST instead, reducing the connection times significantly.

There's a considerable number of related issues to do with high bandwidth that need serious investigation, from security implications (brute force of TCP session numbers occasionally rears its ugly head again until someone manages to squeeze better security into the protocol) to better protocols to support routing mechanisms (ipv6 being a good case in point, ipv4 is computationally expensive to route in comparison, causing your megafast link to choke because the hardware can't handle it).

That would ruin their business model.

Wouldn't using an existing network like say the internet be much cheaper?

If they did that, they couldn't sell the .vr and .cin domain names for their proposed network, and it looks like the sale of these names is to be their near-term source of revenue.

Looks completely bogus

Yes, looks bogus.

Domain names are so Web 1.0, anyway. In virtual reality, you have virtual real estate, like the "islands" of Second Life.

Give a give a give a give a Garmin

If I'm going to be using a VR-type setup, nothing is going to ruin the experience as well as typing a domain name!

Think of it as like typing a street name into your GPS receiver.

Not a chance

Bah, I say. This is about as likely to happen in 2007 as DNF being released.

They talk about "not enough bandwidth" to transmit the necessary information.

But wait, there's more! There are so many unanswered questions. How do you connect (not by DSL or cable!)? What's the interface? Does it run on a computer, or a separate appliance?

On another note, this should not make references to the Matrix. It's nothing more than a Second Life, with lower entry requirements (for the providers, of course)

"Not enough bandwidth"

This is a common complaint amongst Internet 2 users and is even to be heard from facilities on the European-wide gigabit network. And these are far from being as network-intensive as MMORGs would be if you had comparable screen resolution and frame rates.

So we're looking at 10 gigabits/second minimum, for the kind of really heavy-duty traffic we're talking about, for any reasonable number of servers on that network. There's plenty of dark fiber around and I believe that the record for 200+ mile distances over fiber is in the order of around 4 or 5 petabytes/second. The backbone isn't going to be a technological problem, then. It would be damn expensive to light up enough to cover even as small a region as the United States, but it isn't impossible.

But that's the backbone. How do you get that traffic into people's homes? We're barely at the point of getting people to pay for single gigabit connections, never mind ten gigabit ethernet drops. The NICs are not exactly cheap either. And it's not just any old PC that can sustain a data stream through the PCI bus at those kinds of rates. You're looking at a fairly expensive piece of machinery, and one that is to be used not just solely for games (gaming machines are always expensive) but solely for games on that network. The more you use it for anything else, the less return you get for your investment.

Do I think this is a hoax? Yes. Because it's impossible? No, it could be done. But either it won't be done well enough to be worth having a new network for it, OR it will be too expensive for gamers.

On the other hand, a high-performance VR network for the scientific community, an order or two in magnitude faster than anything currently out there, could be done tomorrow and you're damn right that DARPA, CERN and the other Really Big League users could afford to pay the connection charges. Compared to the cost of the LHA in Switzerland, a ten gig drop per office in these labs that went to a secure petabyte trans-atlantic backbone would look like chump change.

Cyberpunk much?

Neuronet eh? I think a group of researchers got a little too much into the Neal Stephenson and William Gibson novels. Wonder if it's going to be open to the public, I've got some Shadowrun hacking fantasies I've been dying to act out.

They could call this Vapornet also

From the article:
quoting IAVRT co-founder Chistopher Scully: ...IAVRT is overseeing the registration of Neuronet domain names, the group said. Trademark holders can get an early start from February 5 to June 1; the general public is set to get access after June 4...

and ...Funds raised from the sale of network domain names will offset the considerable costs associated with the creation of the network...

If this is not the definition of vapornet, I do not know what is.
I wonder who are that easy to fool and will pay the registration fee.

Some paid SCO a license fee for Linux, so they might have a customer base here.

Hold on...

They're trying to create an entire new network? Not even the telco's did that (used existing telephone infrastructure). And, they plan to finance it by selling domain names in this network. But, no company will buy one (they must be expensive...) until they see a need. There's no need until the network exists...

Anybody with any idea how they could possibly create an entire new network spanning much of the US (forget the world), with essentially no prospect of money until it's finished?

Visit my Neuroblog!

I'd tell you how to get there, but your primitive HTML tags are incapable of displaying the 3rd dimension required to visualize the hyperlink.

I have one of these

(in a deep Austrian accent) My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer.

Infinium Phantom 2.0

Deja Vu of when I wasted good money parking domain names for the infinium phantom. [phantom.net]

Speaking of VR

Is it possible anywhere to get a full field of vision helmet or goggles? From what I've read on VR, the effect of immersion doesn't work until your field of vision is very near completely covered. All the alleged VR gear I see these days just make it look like you're watching a little TV screen. The term VR has been watered down to the point where it covers Wolfenstein 3D if you sit close enough to the screen. I'm surprised there's no truly immersive gaming googles for WoW or something yet...

Cheers.

Is it too late...

... to submit an entry for the Vaporware awards ? I think we have a sure shot here.

Even better, virtual domain names!

Hurry up people, my virtual domain names* are going fast! Buy them before it's too late.

* Domain names only valid on my local network. Reliability not guaranteed.

Everybody wants to rule the (virtual) world

I know, I'll set up a new Internet (with blackjack and hookers, natch) where I'm a monopoly so everyone has to pay me. Why should ICANN and IANA and telcos have all the fun?

At least it will serve as a lesson to anyone clueless enough to get scammed by these people.

Meh...

I'm preemptively adding it to my list of Vaporware 2007-2009

Suspicous

The fact it's being financed by selling internet based swamp land is a concern.

Not in the wildest dot-com days

This would have been hard enough to pitch in '99. They're going to build a whole network for a niche application that isn't even consuming a single-digit percentage of the existing internet? That's nuts.

OK, maybe VR is consuming a significant percentage of the net if you define it as "network gaming" or something. If you do that though, you immediately provide an argument against the need for another network, since these applications are successful with the current net. You might be able to argue that you could provide more bandwidth-intensive applications with the dedicated network, but a logical first step is to write the software and run it over the existing network first, and then run demos on a LAN showing how a dedicated network would help. If your LAN demos blow people away, then maybe you have something... but if that were possible, you'd already be hearing network gamers say things like "this rocks on the corporate LAN, but is worthless on my cable modem". I haven't heard anything like that.

Then, as that linked blog pointed out, you'd want to be able to communicate with the Internet at large. So. Then you'd need a Neuronet to Internet gateway of some kind. Even if this conveyed an advantage, just think of the cost--bringing in another ISP just for one app that most people don't even care about???

This just makes no sense to anybody who knows anything. Maybe they'll fleece some really stupid VCs though.

Internet-like growth needs decentralization

Even if we assume for a minute that this isn't a scam ...

They've got their underlying model entirely wrong if they're expecting massive growth and success of their VR network by analogy with the Internet.

The Internet bloomed in popularity because it was decentralized and uncontrolled, growing branches at all points and sprouting leaf nodes everywhere. The explosive growth of content "at the edges" happened because of a total lack of coordination and restriction, ie. because people could do their own thing without asking, and almost without cost. And its millions of contributors were driven by fun and interest, not by earning money from their sites.

In contrast, these Neuronet folks seem to be starting with a centralised and tightly restricted registration scheme, plus costly membership that is clearly creating an elite and a money-driven pyramid right from the start.

Well that won't work, if they expect growth modelled on the growth of the Internet.

And it also won't work because of the lack of community-based VR systems to run on such a VR network. The few existing ones that could qualify (Second Life, all online MMOGs and game worlds, clan-based FPSs, etc etc) are almost all proprietary or centralized or both, and hence don't meet the two key requirements for explosive growth.

Frameworks for making non-proprietary and decentralized VR systems do exist, in fact there are many of them (in the guise of open-source 3D game engines), but that's merely a potential rather than a reality for today.

I'm not sure I understand

So this is a separate network, independent of the Internet -- indeed, not even connected. Kind of like a LAN. Perhaps they're planning to run fiber to the door for anyone who wants to use their VR network?

Matrix incoming...

There is some fear, however, that the whole thing is a scam.

Be fear if the whole thing is coming true!

Neuronet

If you die in the Neuronet do you die out here. The body cannot live with out the mind

Wrong end of the argument

Why don't they start with, say, the VR interfacing hardware, and then, I don't know, maybe the computers and software needed to generate the environment.

Get two or more of these nonexistant devices in the same room talking to eachother over nice fast cheap ethernet first. THEN worry about the external network to hook said nonexistant devices together over a distance.

Oh, wait, my bad. Not as easy to get peoples money that way. Nevermind.

Serial Experiments Lain

I would have called it "Wired" or "Seventh Gen Protocol" if it where me...

Alas, the woes of the bleeding edge

It's almost unfortunate that this would never work out, be it a hoax or not. As someone mentioned earlier, until there are users on the network, no company will buy domains for it, but until people buy domains for it, there will be no network. The exaggerated scope of it seems to make me think it's a hoax though. If they would just make small VR arcades, or VR cafes or what have you, and then network those in a small area, and then gradually grow larger and larger, then maybe that would be viable. But to propose to instantly shoot out from coast to coast? This is either a scam or a really, really, poorly thought out operation.

A seperate network?!

A single telephone line was enough for VR.5 [imdb.com]...

worst scam EeveRr

soo basicly they are trying to make a MMORPG with no cash. great...

there is realy no need for linked 3d maps, since the it would be much less efficent then the current system in tranfering information. if it is to be implimented the map coding/graphics must be procedurel form to achive the enough data compression for the transfer to be more efficent then the current system. allowing the same graphics to be adapted to any system with extremely high compression. but no real advantg here other then it looks pretty, ie entertainment; back to the MMORPG. until some one demos some real advantage of such a world it's not gona happen since the work involved is way 2 much.

the evolution of such a .net so to speak must but user based, thus will only come about when procedual graphics become very popular indeed - ie no time soon ;)

web3d.net

I certainly agree with others that this "smells" like a scam. But if this is a scam, then what are other projects aiming to unify the "3D Web" with a proprietary platform centrally-owned by a single entity? Since Second Life is the subject of so much negative attention lately, let's use them as an example. Are they really so different than IAVRT?

Second Life claims to provide a platform that can grow to handle the demands of the metaverse, yet their servers can handle only a few active users at a time [com.com]. Second Life has at most tens of thousands of users online at any point in time, about the same number of users handled by a single (2D) web server. Many websites use hundreds of these servers to handle their traffic demands! That means for Second Life to handle load comparable with a single 2D website (or a single island in their model), they would need to be several hundred times larger, and this doesn't even begin to address the additional demands required for exchanging 3D assets.

Second Life could never possibly scale to meet the demands of a real metaverse. Yet they continue to attract big companies using inflated numbers and over-hyped potential (and because frankly, with all its problems, Second Life is still the best thing available). But enough about Second Life. The same things can be said of pretty much any 3D web platform company trying to lock-in customers to their proprietary systems. Despite that IAVRT is a "not-for-profit" organization, and the Neuronet's lack of technical feasibility (among other things) does make it "smell" like a scam, I would be inclined to group IAVRT into this camp.

One thing I do agree with the IAVRT on is that there is a need to establish open protocols to build a shared platform for the 3D web. However, I can think of no technical reason this cannot or should not take the form of an extension to the existing Internet. There is no need for a new physical network and no need for a new registry authority. There may be an argument to be made for an organization to rally these efforts. However, I'm more inclined support an extension from an existing reputable organization like the Web3D Consortium [web3d.org].

Nowadays, rallying also does not necessarily require money. It can be performed using just a community portal website. I've recently assembled a portal just for this purpose at web3d.net [web3d.net] and I'd like to invite anyone interested to come participate. And don't worry, there are no membership fees involved <g>.

It could be worse...

they could have called it Skynet.